FTS Recruiting Spire 70-0

I tried this deck and have been through about 40 gauntlet runs. Overall my 7/7 rate is about 60%, but that's entirely on me as I am still learning how to pilot the deck correctly. Overall, a large majority of my losses have come to power screw (most notably not getting shadow). I replaced the 2 star charts for Crests of chaos and removed the recovery in the market for a Xenan tome. I’ve had much less power issues now.

The thing about gauntlet is that you have so little wiggle room for getting good hands as you only get 1 mulligan. With a 3 color deck, there are just times where you’re just going to be hosed no matter what. This deck has pretty strict requirements at FFTTS.Although the second T isn’t strictly required, you need it to play Field medic, which lots of time you will not have, so you will need to be aware of using Xultan Conclave for that second T or paying for it with mark of the grove/fetching with chant.

The deck is wildly swingy. I’ve come back from super aggressive decks with 1 or 2 life and will bust out 2 Xenan adepts with charge and kill my opponent with 28 unblockable damage to the face. Then there are other times where I just get run over as I am unable to sustain, which is my biggest issue with the deck.

Unlike the TS Spire deck, where it has multiple ways to sustain (Hive queen and Hecaton) and multiple chump blockers, this deck pretty much only has 1 card and that is Field medic. You can always chump with Calm instructors/Smoke shapers, but at that point you might be too vulnerable to direct damage, 2x torch to the face, overwhelm, fliers etc.

This deck WILL take damage. You will eat tons of damage before you’re set-up properly. It’s an auto-win vs the slower gauntlet decks but definitely a coin flip vs some aggressive decks. Mindless aggression for example is an uphill battle. Strangers can be tough too without any silence.

That being said, the MVP of the deck is Tota Pioneer. Using the market and then being able to cast Spire shadows on the same turn is too good that lessens the overall damage you take and gets you closer to recruit chaining. His second ability also works beautifully on siege supplier for up to 20 damage to the face and it can also be an effective pseudo board wipe as the AI will multi block it a lot of times.

For the market, Spire shadows is obviously the first pick. Second pick is usually Glimpse and then Vikrum’s or Xenan Tome. Glimpse can win games single handily and I’ve won games that I had no business winning. That being said, it’s incredibly RNG based as there are times where you will warp into back to back power and you’re hosed.

In terms of recruit. It’s obviously very OP but not entirely a guaranteed win. I’ve lost many games by only recruiting into smuggler/merchant, or my 2nd or 3rd Tota pioneer. When you don’t hit your win cons, it doesn’t feel good. You’re also dead if you don’t draw into an early recruit after Shadow spires or have one in your opening hand. Also Patrice and Smoke shaper at 6 and 5 cost respectively, are too slow vs the aggressive decks to hard cast at their full power cost. You will need a calm instructor or druid of the sands to have a chance. That being said, you can definitely win off 1-2 recruits, but it's all RNG.

This is definitely a degenerate deck but I don’t see this as consistent as the TS shadow spire deck, but again maybe I need another 40 runs to really get the hang of piloting it.

Lastly, I'm currently on a 5-0 gauntlet run with the deck. Video only shows last 3 runs though.